CHENNAI: Madras High Court had upheld the appointment of three Puducherry BJP MLAs who were nominated by Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi. The MLAs were appointed by her in July last year, leading to exchange of barbs between the lieutenant governor and Chief Minister V Narayanasamy. The CM had called Bedi a “BJP agent”, using words like “murder of democracy” while she clarified she was an “agent of the Constitution”. Bedi had also repeatedly stated that the MLAs were nominated to the Assembly in keeping with the norms and an unnecessary uproar was created over it.
The Congress government in Puducherry and Bedi have been at loggerheads since she took office in 2017 over several issues, like medical admissions, civic problems, and induction of three nominated MLAs. Narayanasamy on January 24, had said he would soon meet the President and the Prime Minister to discuss the unabated violation of statutory provisions in discharging her duties and “interfering in the routine administration by the elected ministry”.
He said, “Whenever differences arise between the lieutenant governor and the government on any matter, the concerned files should be sent to the President for final decision as had been prescribed in the statue relating to the administration of Puducherry.” In December 2017, Narayanasamy had alleged that Bedi's “style of functioning is more like a leader of Opposition than an administrator” of the Union Territory. He had said that even though he had written to the lieutenant governor asking her not to “overstep her constitutional and statutory limits” and not to “interfere in the routing working of the elected government”, she had been doing so.
